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I know there are about 20 of the original NES games that came with built-in Famicom converters. For those of you that weren’t already aware of this fact, basically, what Nintendo of America did was take the original Japanese PCBs from the Famicom games and add them onto an adapter that contained a lock-out chip so it could only be played on North American system. And is also essentially why American NES carts are so much bigger than Famicom carts. Anyway, of those original games with the adapters, the Japanese PCB would contain either the standard CHR and PRG mask roms, or black blobs – the latter I tend to see far more commonly. What I have never seen, until now, was the picture below.

I opened up my Pinball because I wanted to use the adapter for something else, but I immediately changed my mind once I saw the board. I have never before seen a Famicom board that looked like this, let alone any Nintendo game that had 2 PRG mask roms.

I did a little research and checked around to see if good ol’ Google would turn up anything, even just a picture of a similar board. Couldn’t find anything, so I just figured I’d share. I guess I’d like to know if anyone else has any games like this and just how common/rare these are.

Like this:

Been putting together some Mother 25th Anniversary carts to come with me to the Lock City Comic Con in CT this July. Hopefully a Slurpee will be coming with me as well. Mother 25th Anniversary Edition is basically a big overhaul of the Mother/Earthbound Zero prototype that was never released for the original NES.

Come check out the GamesquadSquad booth if you happen to be in the area. I’ll have this and a bunch of other NES repros, custom cases, and perler art and hopefully a special guest with some hand-made, knitted, wearable nerdery.

Finally got the Etsy store up in full swing for the NES reproductions; making selling them much easier for both the buyer and myself. It still needs some work, but it’s up. I’ve even got my first sale and review already.

Granted there were about 3 or 4 games on that list that I am genuinely excited about (the Final Fantasy VII Remake is not one of them, just in case there was any confusion). But it made me realize how completely ho-hum I feel about this current console cycle. A few of my friends have talked about how both the PS4 and the Xbox One have been big wastes of money and I’m almost always an optimist about the potential gaming consoles can have, but this is it? We should totally be in full swing of a new console cycle and I can’t get excited for more than just a few games?

I still play my old cartridge games way more than any of this next gen stuff. Luckily, there has been a huge influx if indie-developed, retro-style games released as of late. However, they always feel like they take backseat to their high profile cousins. I miss the majesty of opening a new game. Yes it’s friggin majestic! I miss not having to install a game for a half hour before I can play it. I miss not having another 15 minutes of updates and then a 5 minute loading screen thereafter. I MISS INSTRUCTION MANUALS! If you’re going to make me wait 30 minutes to play the game I just got, at least give me a manual to read while I take a dump and wait.

Some months ago I heard about the Retro Video Game System; Something I thought was a joke based on the name alone. Turns out it’s a thing that’s actually happening and they’re going to be starting up a Kickstarter campaign in September. What is Retro VGS you ask? Retro VGS is a full cartridge based console with brand new games being developed for it that the big publishers hopefully will be keeping their hands off of. I’ll repeat that again: Brand new game IPs produced in cart format.

At first I was a little skeptical, and still am to be honest. There are 3 things I can see as hurdles for this system really gaining traction.

1) I’m still worried about price. Not of the console itself, but the games. Cart games cost more to physically manufacture than disc games. But we’ll see. I’m sure they know that in order to be relevant, they can’t have restrictive pricing.

2) Retro and cart gaming is really a niche market. I’m not sure I see this really gaining mainstream success. Even those that consider themselves retro gamers tend to download and emulate the software.

3) It’s modeled after the Jaguar. To be more specific, they actually acquired the tooling from Atari for both the console and the game shells. This saved money and explains why it looks this way. But modelling it after a failed system is like asking a known sex offender to babysit for you – it might turn out OK, but why take that risk?

Either way, I’m super excited for this console. There’s already been a handful of games announced and it’s even going to get a pack-in game – another long dead tradition. Barring an absurdly Neo-Geo-like price tag, there’s nothing that would keep me from hopping on the Kickstarter campaign. The only way to get one of the custom colored consoles mind you. You can head to the official web page here: http://www.retrovgs.com/ to check out the systems specs and get a look at some of the games planned.

Two more completed carts ready to roll out. Took me forever to make the label for Donkey Kong. Not that it was hard or anything, I just couldn’t land on a design I liked for it. Eventually landed on the classic arcade image and I think it fits rather well.

Adventure Island IV was never released in America. It came out in 1994 for the Japanese Famicom and by that time, the Super Nintendo had already cemented itself as the preeminent system. So this, like many other games that were developed late in the life of the original NES, was never given its fair shake on the American market.

Not sure how to accurately label this one. I would call it Original Donkey Kong, but they already have that for the NES, but it’s not an entirely accurate title. So Donkey Kong Pie Factory I suppose would be the best choice, but it makes it sound like an entirely different game. What it is, is the complete arcade version of Donkey Kong with the extra level that was removed from the NES console version.

Decided that I wanted to make some GBA repros as well. There’s a few GBA games that never came out here that I’d like to have a cart for; not too many, but enough to make me interested in the endeavor. What better one to start with than Mother 3.

That being said, they’re kind of a pain in the butt to make and I don’t think I’d ever really do this in any sizable quantities, unless of course someone has a stock of blank GBA PCBs out there.

So obviously Mother 3 is one of the hot ones, but what’s next? Anyone have any suggestions? Anything they know of they’d like to see in cart format? There’s a Suikoden card game I was thinking of doing…

Finished another repro cart. Known in America as Super Mario Bros The Lost Levels, this is the official sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. game which was available on the Famicom Disk System. We of course got the remake on SNES in the form of Super Mario All-Stars. If you are interested in purchasing one of these carts, shoot me a message or send me $35 through paypal to gdraudt@gmail.com with your shipping address. I’ll knock $10 off that price if you send me a donor cart. Message me for possible donors.